Unusual compound found in Rembrandt’s The Night Watch
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Mummy brown: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mummy_brown
When you look at a lot of the paintings from the Pre-Raphaelites, there are people in there.
You're partially right. It didn't start being called "mummy" until it was associated with harvesting the substance from embalmed corpses IIUC
> Beginning around the 12th century when supplies of imported natural bitumen ran short, mummia was misinterpreted as "mummy", and the word's meaning expanded to "a black resinous exudate scraped out from embalmed Egyptian mummies".
After being told that the paint was harmless, ... instructed to "point" their brushes on their lips in order to give them a fine tip... The women were instructed to point their brushes in this way because using rags or a water rinse caused them to use more time and material, as the paint was made from powdered radium, gum arabic and water. ... The right of individual workers to sue for damages from corporations due to labor abuse was established as a result of the Radium Girls case.
On a side note, if you have a chance to see The Night Watch (in Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum) go there and do it. Photographs don't do it justice, the painting is massive and the figures are basically life size. It feels very different in person.
Can be installed with pre-carved draining slots to sink, so gets rid of the "where to I stash this ugly plate rack" dilemma for would-be insta-princess shots.
Mainly, "it's fashionable" -By now, the 1970s avocado-colour toilet suite has probably moved into historically preserved home space. Stone benches were actually a thing in worker housing in the early 19th century. 'Het Skip' in Amsterdam and the Bauhaus designed worker flats have concrete sinks and workbenches on this design pattern. Amazingly functional for mass production at that time, long lasting (see above re: staining)
for day to day cleaning, water and dish soap.
don't use home-made cleaners, natural cleaners, products with citrus or vinegar, you're basically destroying the surface.
this one about granite is probably a good guide, even though you asked about concrete:
https://prohousekeepers.com/blog/how-to-clean-granite-counte...
In commercial kitchens I've seen using concrete, I think they expect to have to re-surface it and anyway, its about clean, not shiny: they can tolerate a working surface which looks stained, as long as its not actually dirty and affecting hygiene. If all else fails, there's always grinding back. I'm not in the business. I live with the chips I put into our composite fakestone, and we picked a colour which seems to be masking the stains (mainly.. red wine. its always red wine. I thought I'd emptied that bottle nicely)
I've read that Roman pipes and pots/mugs had lead, but IIRC it's still unclear if it was as toxic as we would fear: https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/07/did-lead-poisoning-c...